Programs: BA Silver, Priority Club, Europcar Privilege Club
Posts: 1,836
While this has been discussed many times over here, my view is that paying for advanced seat selection (after all you can select a seat for free when OLCI opens) is a perfectly acceptable practice, especially in combination with making it a benefit to status holders to exempt them.
It's one of the things that adds value to having status, and as such something that motivates me to keep status.
Though when it leads to situations where a GGL member is in a MIDDLE SEAT in Club booking 5 weeks out I'd argue that paying has gone to far in reducing choice for elite passengers. Very annoying.